Letters Home from a Yankee Doughboy 1916-1919

I neglected to write you for a couple of weeks and ought to be kicked but you will forgive me I know.

Well, at last we are getting good news and the Huns are beginning to feel something new, the American spirit of youth and rightesnous which has never yet tasted the dregs of defeat, and I feel sure that before long Fritz will be back in his own yard, a pretty well licked cur, and when this war is over, the rest of the world will look up to Uncle Sam and his boys and salute them as the saviours of the world and liberty.

John Wulforst is now down in Georgia and will be going “Over There” before long. My old boss, Paymaster Karker, is now on duty in France and has asked me to join him if possible. I am seriously thinking of it and will go if I can arrange things in the Navy Dept for an indefinite leave of absence; I am sure that if I get duty with him it will only be a short time before I get a commission.

This war, as I told you once before is a man’s size job and is no skylarking expedition, but I know that when the time comes to show what you are made of, you will show the true American spirit of fearlessness and will do your duty as a real American patriot. I trust that you will distinguish yourself and earn promotion by your valor in a true Spartan manner. Our daily thoughts and prayers are for you, that you may do your duty and that God may decree that you shall come back to us again safe and sound and a better man for having gone through the fire and seen men do things that shows the fibre of which they are made.

I will close now, dear Joe, and trust that when this letter reaches you, it will find you in good health and spirits, and ready to knock hell out of any hun that you run up against.

With love from your father, Madaline, Robert and myself, I am, as ever,